by Boaventura K. Lemane
The Mozambican government has been selling land to white South Africans who want to use it for their farming activities. However, Mozambican opposition activist, Boaventura K. Lemane, says this is against the nations interests.
Over the past three years, there has been an influx of returning white South Africans, Zimbabweans, Malawians, and former Portuguese colonialists, many of whose property got lost during the war for independence and the advent of socialism in Mozambique. The purpose of their return is to purchase or reclaim land that is made cheaply available to them by the government.
Mozambicans never thought that their country's government would be so irresponsible as to give away national land without thoroughly reviewing the consequences of such action. The fair course of action would have been to put the vote to the people via a referendum. Well, the giving away of land in Mozambique by dubious government land-tenure policies is no longer a rumour. It is a reality.
Between 1986-1993, land concession in Mozambique to foreigners has totalled 12, 711,000 hectares according to Dr Gregory Myers, Director of a research project on Land Policy Reform in Mozambique. Dr Myers' report, entitled, "Land Tenure and Security in Mozambique", presented on March 30, 1994 at the Overseas Development Council Office in Washington, D.C., contains alarming news for Mozambican exiles who expect to return home some day to lands they believe will be waiting for them.
The acquisition of land in Mozambique is attractive to foreigners because the country is enjoying peace for the first time in decades as both RENAMO and FRELIMO forces have ceased battling each other and are committed to settling Mozambique's problems through the ballot box. One reason why these individuals are able to obtain land in Mozambique is because of poor management by government officials. Another reason is the foreigners' ability to out- manouvre government officials at the Central, Provincial and District levels. Yet another factor facilitating the acquisition of land is the uncontrollable corruption in government. What right does a handful of corrupt government officials have to hand over Mozambique's land, in the process risking the nation's sovereignty, to foreigners? What right do they have not to hold referendums on the land issue? Don't the people of Mozambique matter to the ruling government party? These foreign profiteers are not willing to invest in an economy that will benefit all Mozambique's citizens: rather, they recline in their ivory towers and speculate on Mozambican affairs without ever conducting a full analysis of the land.
Traditionally, land in Mozambique belonged to the community or clan with the government maintaining custody. The local chiefs did not attempt to deprive the people from using the land for their needs. Their role with regard to land form use was to mediate boundary disputes and safeguard the land from foreign invasion. Even during the period of colonialism, the land and its people were not interfered with by the Portuguese. The civil war, drought, and government policies displaced about 6 million people in Mozambique. Since the signing of the peace agreement between FRELIMO and RENAMO in October, 1992, more than 400,000 refugees have returned to the lands of their origin.
As a matter of fact, one of the provisions of the Rome Agreement between FRELIMO and RENAMO was that people would return to their areas of origin with the hope of reclaiming land they once possessed. Most Mozambicans are very poor and the government does not have resources for the returning refugees as the government itself is losing its sovereignty largely because of its dependence on international donors.
Dispossessing Mozambican land until the next elected government comes up with a cohesive policy that respects national interests regarding land distribution. As Jeff Drumtra, Africa Policy Analyst, U S Committee for Refugees, put it, "Mozambican peasants yearn for peace, food, and development." In his letter to the editor of the NEW YORK TIMES, in a response to an article entitled, "Beatles" Guru offers Nirvana to Mozambique," by Bill Keller, Drumtra also stated that the eruption of "new violence is possible if Mozambicans precious land continues to be sold out from underneath them." One cannot contest Mr. Drumtra's gloomy assessment of land-sale in Mozambique and the desperate situation that may one day face Mozambican returnees.
In fact, Bill Keller's NEW YORK TIMES report, dated February 10, 1994, bears some discussion as well. That report stated that the Chissano regime in Mozambique was contemplating giving away 49 million acres of land, a quarter of the country, to Maharishi Mahash Yogi, the guru of transcendental meditation, to develop a 'Heaven on Earth Development Project" in Mozambique. The project is to be titled by legions of Mozambicans whose inner harmonies have been uplifted by meditation. Prospectors of all kinds are reported to be flocking to Mozambique in search of easy fortune. Chissano's son and children of some of his ministers are reported to be studying on scholarships at the Maharishi International University at Fairfield in Iowa, which requires meditation by all students, faculty and staff.
This information would very nearly be hilarious if not for the fact that it is so disturbing. President Chissano himself is said to be one of the most enthusiastic devotees of transcendental meditation, which he credits with bringing peace and a drop in the crime rate to Mozambique. One does not really know what to make of this situation. Here, one has President Chissano, a man who yesterday was in the forefront of suppressing the practice of religion, is now a devotee of a Hindu sect. What will he be next? Those who know president Chissano may not be surprised. The KGB-trained man easily changes from one extreme philosophy to another. One of the chief masterminds of the dismally unsuccessful FRELIMO Marxist-Leninist state and the chief architect of Mozambique's concentration camps, also known as "re-education camps."
President Chissano resorted to the use of militias called NAPRAMAS who used spiritualism, magic, sorcery and witchcraft in his unsuccessful bid to win the war against RENAMO. It is now time that President Chissano makes a serious soul-searching review of FRELIMO's past policies which brought about untold suffering to the Mozambican people instead of resorting to frivolous, insulting ideology for resolving Mozambique's problems.
The FRELIMO regimes has opened up the Umbeluzi Valley in southern Mozambique and Ponto de Ouro exclusively for white South African farmers from the transvaal, with whom it is suspected that FRELIMO ministers maintain obscure trade relations. It took this action during the heydays of apartheid while at the same time, it shouted itself hoarse against the minority regime in that country. What hypocrisy! FRELIMO also gave vast tracts of land to the British conglomerate, LONRHO, which brought in British Gurkha mercenaries to guard that land. However, rest assured: foreigners are not the only who are grabbing up land in Mozambique. Government ministers also purchased 20,000 acres of land north of the Beira corridor, in the Sofala Province.
In the film entitled, "Tools of exploitation," Ali Mazrui, the Kenyan historian, told us that European colonialists came to Africa with a "bang, " digging up the ground for profit, thus, upsetting the old technological order. Contrarily, Africans had always co-existed with nature - taking from nature only what they needed in order to survive. The question that professor Mazrui posed was whether the abolishing of the old technological order of African co- existence with nature was for the benefit of Africans or for the "collective burial of a people?" This is relevant to the buying and selling of land in Mozambique or for the "collective burial" of the Mozambican people? consider that Mozambicans are losing their land, the nation's sovereignty, and are experiencing a permanent change to the old principle that the land belongs to those who till it: one must wonder.
Although during the period of Portuguese colonialism there were some land abuses, the land was largely left for use by peasants. There was always land for those who wished to till the fields. No one bought and sold land for profit back then. Even border area peasants from neighbouring countries like Malawi, Zambia and Rhodesia, where land was sold, came to farm in Mozambique free of charge. At that time, the land produced enough food and famines were rare. Most importantly, Mozambique still had its sovereignty. Soon after coming to power, however, FRELIMO removed peasants from their traditional lands and forced them to live in communal villages. As a result, food production fell, the agriculture collapsed and chronic famine set in, which every year has decimated more and more people.
Neither communalism nor new utopian ideals, such as those of the Maharishi, will help the peasants of Mozambique. Mr. Chissano and his colleagues in the government should leave land to Mozambicans. Land is our most valuable national resource as well as our heritage. Money already collected from the sale of land through secret and illicit means should be returned to the national treasury. The land should not be sold. The land should not be given away. Do not compromise our national sovereignty or else Mozambique will have "hell on earth" instead of "heaven on earth" which President Chissano seeks to create.
